RichardReardon.com

Top seven traps to avoid when marketing your services #56

1. Assuming that current revenues will last.

Don’t get comfortable. People get comfortable, and that always leads to complacency. Marketing competence requires sustained, fresh innovative ideas all year long.

2. Not knowing the impact your future goals have on results.

Every advance you enjoy begins with an idea about your future. Be clear on where you are heading weekly.

3. Selling benefits that stem only from the product.

Long term success requires that you provide both business benefits and personal benefits. The customer needs to have their personal needs met. Make a list of 15 personal “wins” you know your product can deliver.

4. Responding to immediate problems instead of investing in a longer term view.

Obviously you want to do a complete job in dealing with current conditions. Be careful you don’t get absorbed with what you have. Use current conditions with customers as the platform for improvement.

5. Failing to re-fresh your own beliefs about selling, your product, your values and your commitment to grow.

These mental environment factors are drivers. Don’t let them get stale. They impact your bottom-line results more than any other factors.

6. Putting others ahead of your own self interests.

Make sure you always come first. This can be a bit tricky. It is the best possible way to insure you truly add value to others.

7. Thinking that you are selling to a limited market.

The “fixed pie” concept limits growth, vision and energy. Move your selling efforts toward creating new opportunities for yourself and customers.

I hope you can gain from one or two of these ideas. Choose one and decide how you will apply the concept in the coming weeks.

Cheers

Richard L Reardon

800 560 0880

Develop your own Action Bias to eliminate waste and get better result! #55

Develop your own Action Bias to eliminate waste and get better result! #55

Deciding a strategy is fairly easy when you want change. Converting that plan to action is far more

challenging. The research shows that most of us see our important goals get eclipsed by all sorts of side tracks and rabbit hole type journeys.

The best way to insure that you actually get into action and accomplish something is to breathe fresh life into your strategy. Here is a tool you may find useful.

From ideas to action – 7 prep steps:

Once you have a strategy or know what your plan is, ask yourself these questions.

1. What is the purpose of the plan? (purpose as in what are you trying to accomplish?)

2. What difference will executing this plan make to everyone involved? Do others really want to work on this?

3. How clear are you on what the end result will be?

4. How clear are you on the work necessary for this to produce results?

5. What is your commitment level to put this plan into action?

6. Can you establish both accountability and deadlines?

7. How will you measure progress and sub results along the way (at least every week)?

Once through these steps, you will either have more or less energy for the plan. Adjust as needed.

These steps will help you move away from not acting on important ideas. The process forces you to zero in on purpose and choice. Both provide 10x the direction and energy for any strategy, plan or idea you have.

Once you get these ducks in a row, you will achieve the results you want.

Cheers

Richard Reardon

800 560 0880

Goal Decisions – look out 18 months and then decide what to do next: # 54

Most of us do not make decisions based on what we want to accomplish. Rather, most decisions are

made in an attempt to fix something.

Here is why:

Expecting to escape a situation, or to fix a nagging problem, is common. “Let’s fix this”, is the

common approach because people do not like pain, tend to be re-active, and really want to do

something – take action.

Whether a business challenge or personal challenge, when you base your decision on “Fixing a

Problem” , 9 out of 10 times that problem will not go away.

Since the focus of your effort is on the problem and not on the possibility, your ideas and thinking

will be limited.

Goal Decisions always include an expectation of approaching good:

Make decisions with a bias for where you want to go, never on what you want to solve.

This method, making all decisions based on a goal, has three elements:

1. An overriding belief that long-term, significant improvement is required and wanted

2. The decision will take you 18 months into the future. In other words, the

decision has to have a long-term, positive impact.

3. All decisions will be based on three simple questions to develop standards:

· Why is a decision necessary?

· What must the decision accomplish (conditions you must achieve)?

· What must the decision avoid (conditions you can’t accept)?

Four easy steps to upgrade any decision:

1. Accept the fact that the need for a decision is a clear signal to you to design a more elegant

solution. This means that you have more than enough breakthrough potential to design a

lasting solution.

2. Do not assume that this problem is the same as any other that has occurred before. Each

problem you face is unique, no matter what you may think.

3. Assume that any condition you face is telling you to adapt your approach, learn something

new and change what you have been doing.

4. Apply the solution-after-next principle so that your decision leads to bigger purposes than the

current issue. Think future.

I hope that you will try this and find it helpful.

Richard Reardon